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Comment by dlyco | Hacker News Reader

It is crazy US takes so long still not banning TikTok. Anyone think Chinese Communist Party has nothing to do with ByteDance, TikTok are stupid and naive, and if you believe a single word the Chinese Communist Party is even more stupid.

Look at Twitter, Facebook, Google, Instagram, even TikTok and many more tech companies are banned in China, what on Earth are the Americans' thinking? You guys are holy saints to think "with our open door policy will one day China be democratic and liberal like us" ?

Probably the Xi JingPing and his comrades are laughing at the Americans while watching the hearing, especially the congress member for discussing things so trivial while they would have probably already doing Machine Learning with the TikTok users.

Just ban TikTok, what takes you guys so long? You guys are not playing the same game as CCP, U.S.A being out-gamed not because not power but the speed on dealing with CCP.

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One of the best things and worst things about America is the first amendment. It is amazing that you can say or make just about anything without the government jailing you or shutting you down.

It feels horrible because that freedom necessitates people who believe everyone else has the same ability to say or make anything they want, even if you find that stuff disgusting or risky.

Yes, there are definitely some limits to the right. But we should be cautious about the government making laws to restrict the right.

Should we ban an entire company or force them to sell as soon as we believe they give personal data to another country? Where is the line drawn at which country? What about a Russian based app or a Belarusian based app?

I'm not saying it's wrong, it just makes me nervous.

I believe the 1st amendment does not apply to foreign entities. These entities are more like foreign agents. Imagine Google, Apple, Microsoft, Tiktok and most of the media companies(i.e Fox, CNN) would be owned by the CCP. What influence do you think they would have over the U.S population if they would be left unchecked? Should they benefit from 1st amendment?

Full text 1A:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

There's nothing in there about foreign entities or any other authors of speech. It's about speech (and religion and assembly and petition) itself, which the state is directed to leave the fuck alone. The variety of zany things any particular entity might want to say is not even the main point. Freedom of speech is important because it means we get to hear and read and experience speech from everyone and everywhere. As soon as a line is drawn around speakers we're not allowed to hear, we no longer have the freedom of speech. Many people are confused about this because they habitually speak without listening. Those of us who mostly listen are not confused in this manner.

Where is the line? There are a lot of Chinese companies who make things that are used in the US by US citizens. What about companies from other countries like Ukraine, Russia, Germany?

It seems obvious to me that if you deem the said country as enemy/systemic rival that's the line you are drawing. I think the governace model(i.e authoritan/communist) could be another reason. The U.S-China relationship worked so far b/c China didn't show its teeth until few years ago. Now China is supporting Russia in the invasion of Ukraine. Either way the question here if foreign state sponsored entities should benefit from the 1st amendment and IMHO I believe the answer is NO.

Russia and Belarus are both members of the Axis of Evil too, so yes??

Who decides who is in the Axis of Evil? Do you want the Biden administration deciding? Do you want Trump to decide?

What do you mean what took us so long? As far as I know, practically no country has fully banned TikTok. If you mean banned on government devices: firstly, the US did do that, just like the EU, and secondly, that’s not even the real problem (which is propaganda and manipulating what media people constantly consume)

Has your country done a full TikTok ban?

Anyways, like the other comment said, this issue in America is less about do we trust China (a majority of people don’t) or do we want to be saints, and more about rights. Outright blocking an app (or website for that matter) at all is completely unprecedented in the US, as far as I know. And the second part is that TikTok is incredibly popular, which means banning it would be possibly ruinous for someone’s election chances.

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